Alaska y Mario

Spain's version of MTV reality TV a la The Osbornes is Alaska y Mario. Alaska is famous for her role in La Bola de Cristal-a vanguard childrens' program made in the 1980's when Spain was taking its first dramatic steps out of the Franco dictatorship-and for the 1980's cult classic dance band named after her, Alaska. Her man, recently husband, Mario is Mario, PR rep for a few other famous Spanish stars, he's also played around in the world of music writing lyrics for Alaska and singing in his own band Nancys Rubias. Anyway, they are quite the pair- I think my favorite scene from their reality show was one of them picking out their outfits for a party together or maybe when they spent the day playing dominos with Alaska's mom. In any case, as exentric as they are you can't help but love them and they make for the best programming on MTV Spain. Here's a little intro clip-or you can watch an episode clicking on the Alaska y Mario link above.

Reading Rainbow-Spanish Style

Who didn't love Reading Rainbow as a kid? It was the best show ever. While much of Spanish and International television is dumbing down (Telecinco, a sensationalist channel that hosts shows like Sálvame and Big Brother, recently bought CNN+, SPain's CNN, to and replaced the programming with 24 hour covereage of the Big Brother house), Television Española, the national channel, does give hope that perhaps TV isn't humanities demise. Last year they got rid of commercials and thier cultural shows like Version Española and historical series like Cuéntame and Amar en Tiempos Revueltos are top notch. But lately Diego and I have been tuning into channel 2-TVE's cultural channel. Our favorite show is a modern version of Reading Rainbow-Página 2- dedicated to lovers of literature it features the best books of the week, a conversation with an author (including a persoanal reading of his/her text), a film review (based on a book), and a kid's section where kids choose books and talk about them. Best programming out there. Click here to see more.

¿A quién no le gustaba Reading Rainbow de niño? Era el mejor programa del mundo. Mientras gran parte de la programación en la televisión de España y el resto del mundo se está idiotizando(Telecinco, un canal sensacionalista, que presenta programas como Sálvame y Gran Hermano, compro CNN+ para reemplazarlo con un canal dedicado 24 horas al día a la casa de Gran Hermano), Televisión Española, el canal nacional, da esperanza de que la tele no será el final de la humanidad. En 2010 quitaron los anuncios y sus programas culturales como Versión Española y series históricas como Cuéntame y Amar en Tiempos Revueltos son unas de las mejores. Pero recientemente Diego y yo hemos estado viendo el canal 2, el canal cultural de TVE. Nuestro programa favorito es una versión moderna de Reading Rainbow-Página 2- dedicado a destacar lo mejor de la literatura del momento con conversaciones con autores (con una lectura de su obra), recomendaciones, críticas de películas basados en libros, y una sección para los mini-lectores-donde los niños hablan de sus libros preferidos. Es el mejor programa que se puede encontrar hoy en día. Ver un programa de Página 2 aquí.

Oh Iker...

The best Spanish holiday commercial this year, "Because some of us lifted up the country once, but they lift it up everyday."

Desde Galicia

Saturday morning I turned on the TV and caught a program on the Galician Channel called Desde Galicia para el mundo a cultural magazine that features the best of Galician Culture and Geography. It was pretty fantastic. Watch episodes here.

Extraordinario

It's holy year in Santiago. July 25th is a Sunday, and the pilgrims are pouring into the city, bringing with them lots of good vibes after their long camino. Aquarius-a sport drink like Gatorade-is well known for their inspiring commercials. This year they've taken a group of homeless men and followed them on their camino to Santiago. The result is inspiring.

after work...

Aside from the many series we watch on DVD in English (lately we've been watching Entourage...never thought I'd get into it!), a few nights of the week I actually enjoy a few Spanish series on TVE and I think they are quite an improvement on Física o Química from last year (remember Gorka and Yoli?) This year, I've been getting into Pelotas-a comedy series about a barrio in Madrid and their football club, and Gran Reserva-a telenovela about a family owned vineyard (starring one of my favorite Spanish TV actresses of the moment Paula Echevarría-she reminds me of my good friend Christine). After spending the day in English it's nice to take a break back into the world in Spanish.

p.s. everyday the idea of having a vineyard is more and more appealing...

Patricia

A little ode to everyone's favorite Spanish TV personality-Patricia Conde from Se lo que hicisteis. Pretty, funny, and with cute clothes that don't focus on displaying her assets, Spanish Elle online put together this little slideshow of some of her looks. Which do you like?

en el mundo...

There is a great show on Spanish television called, Españoles en el Mundo. The show goes to cities all over the world to see what it is like to live there, following a Spaniard who lives there around for a day seeing the important sights, and going into their houses. It's a pretty excellent idea. You have a travel show and you get a bit of reality seeing what life is really like and hearing about how these average people left Spain to explore some new place...maybe for love, maybe for work, or maybe just for the adventure. One of the most interesting to date was Alaska. It was pretty incredible that they could fill an entire program with Spaniards living in Alaska...who knew?? And, they were all very happy making a new life there. We keep saying they should make the same kind of program for Americans living around the world. Would you watch it? Here's a little clip of a city I love, Athens. Enjoy (if you speak Spanish...sorry no subtitles).

Big Brother??!!??!!

Seriously. What? Do people watch this show? Did it ever make it on American TV? Is it really popular here in Spain? I think its the most annoying show on Spanish television. Maybe it's supposed to be a socialogical experiment. Maybe you can watch it to learn real Spanish. But, seriously? And to top it off the host of the Spanish version, Mercedes Mila, used to be a very famous Barbara Walters-esque journalist who now spends all her time watching bored people in a big house. What? Alucino, tio. De verda.

Yoli and Gorka

A few months ago I wrote a bit about Fisica y Quimica...and yes, Monday night guilty pleasure continues, I watch the show and Diego sits and reads a comic, making a comment every now and the about how the story line and the set is the same as Companeros, a high school series from 10 years ago, although the kids nowadays a disrespectful chulo monsters!

The other day while having dinner with friends suddenly someone started talking about Fisica y Quimica...the confession was made. We're all watching the show.

In any case, my favorite characters are Yoli and Gorka. Yoli is the poligonera, with a raspy voice and no filter on what comes out of her mouth. Gorka is the punk delinquent, who is always in the right place at the right time...or wrong place wrong time? He gets a lot of screen time, and this season helped one of the teachers give birth in her car. Classic episode.

Tele part 2: El Duque

I never really did get into Sin tetas no hay paraiso but El Duque, the main character, is probably the most recognized television character in Spain in the last two years. The series, which roughly translated into English means "without boobs there is no paradise", is based on a series from Colombia about drug trafficking, violence, sex, and a love story involving an innocent girl who gets wrapped up in the wrong world for the love of the Duque. The show has lasted two seasons in Spain, and the finale of the second season was the talk of the town in the days leading up to it because rumor had it the Duque could possibly die. Stories of fans who never missed an episode except for the night their children were born started to circulate and the idea of the end of the Duque, the sexiest man in Spain, was more than the sin tetas public could handle. The night of the finale I did catch the last 5 minutes to see exactly what the talk was all about. The end left some questions to be asked and more than one fan unhappy, so due to the reponse of the fans the following night a second ending was played. I don't want to tell you exactly what happened, but you can watch the two finales and choose the ending you prefer (Spanish skills aren't compeletly necesary). And finally, rumor has it that El Duque is now off to Hollywood to follow the path of Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruise.

Fisica o Quimica

Before moving to Spain I taught High School. It was quite an experience, and the good the bad, the ugly, I look back on the experience with fondness. Here in my new life in Spain, I have a lot more free time, and a lot more time to watch TV and get caught up in pop culture. One of my first television discoveries was the series, Fisica o Quimica, and I was sucked into the melodramatic storylines from the start because when I watched them not only was I entertained, but I also got my first images of the public school system in Spain which is much different from the American system I was used to. The show encompasses the various sterotype trends of the moment in Spanish society including the Chonis o Juanis o Jessicas, basically La Juani, the girls from the lower class barrios who are what we would call a little ghetto in the US and the culture of tuning spending all your money on fixing up your car Pimp my ride style. The story lines on Fisica o Quimica include relationships between students, teachers, and students and teachers, drugs, racial prejudices, social prejudice...etc. etc...along with the high school drama of what teacher is not fair, student behavior, and teacher misconduct. So here here is a clip of the show...if you can speak Spanish enjoy....if not I'll get a little translation together soon!

Translation: So here’s an idea of what is happening. If you have some Spanish skills this might make it easier to follow, just remember there is the Castilian accent and there is a lot of “tía” and “tío” talk which in Spain is the word for dude/girl or whatever other term you may use to refer to people.

The clip begins with the two students talking about the guys they have been with. The blonde is telling her friend about being with a “tío” named Gorka. Gorka then storms in calling her “guarra” (nasty) because he has an STD. She freaks out because she has only been with two guys, Isaac and Gorka. Standing near the girls are two teachers. Brown haired teacher is having a secret love affair with Isaac and hearing the news of the STD blonde teacher says she better go to the doctor…DRAMA!

Out in the hall Gorka finds Isaac and takes him down. People start watching telling them to stop. Brown haired teacher lady steps in and Gorka accidentally punches her making Isaac very mad…that’s his lady. The fight is broken up and Gorka tells everyone the blonde girl has gonorrhea. Isaac is proud of defending his lady, and the teacher realizes how immature he is and that she has got herself into more than she bargained for.

Cabin fever

So, the life of not really having anything to do can be really dangerous when you finally have internet and a phone line connected. I ended up getting sick this week with a cold, and that combined with the accident of about 3 weeks ago when a wooden bench fell on my foot causing quite a nasty looking bruis and probably breaking my toe, made me homebound with a bad case of cabin fever last week. While others went to work, I sat at home reading the newspapers in Spanish and Galician, watching "Se lo que hicisteis", the it show for the siesta hour (kind of like a weird transformation of "The Daily Show" and "The Soup" focused on celebrity gossip shows and with a pretty blond female host, haha), and then by 5pm, with at least 4 more hours until anyone was off work, feeling like I was going to lose it. But on Saturday, Telefonica finally came and installed internet, and since then being homebound has been too much fun. I've found episodes of travel shows, websites with delicious recipes, easy to access news videos, the many joys of perusing friends photos on facebook, reading all my freinds blogs, etc, and suddenly there aren't enough hours between 4-9pm...hahaha. Well, my cold is almost gone, my foot is getting better (probably due to the fact that now with internet I'm not trying to hobble around my house), and I've found many many new ideas for how to spend my time until my work papers come through...I'll share some of them, but more of Spain right after lunch. Provechito.